Laughing gas really isn't funny

AStockton man made headlines this week after filing a novel lawsuit against area head shops that sold him laughing gas. Jason Starn alleges laughing gas crippled him for life.

Michael Fitzgerald

AStockton man made headlines this week after filing a novel lawsuit against area head shops that sold him laughing gas. Jason Starn alleges laughing gas crippled him for life.

Starn, 35, a now-disabled teacher, filed suit in Sacramento Superior Court against one head shop in Modesto and two in the Sacramento area for selling him "death in a can."

His complaint: neither the merchants nor labels on Whip It! nitrous oxide canisters warn the stuff is dangerous. He is suing for the head shops' profits from the products and to halt deceptive labeling.

Nitrous oxide is a colorless, almost odorless gas. Surgeons and dentists use it as a painkiller.

But laughing gas is also a euphoric. Users feel hilarious and dizzy. It has a long history as a recreational drug.

"I am sure the air in heaven must be this wonder-working gas of delight," the poet Robert Southey (1774-1883) wrote not too long after the discovery of laughing gas.

Probably not. Despite its jovial common name, laughing gas does creepy things to the brain. Like "depersonalization," the feeling of watching yourself act without any control.

Or "derealization," in which the outside world appears unreal.

Worse, when users are woofing laughing gas they're not inhaling oxygen. That can cause hypoxia, the potentially fatal oxygen deprivation suffered by mountaineers at high altitudes.

"The labeling laws, the Food and Drug Administration, the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, all of the laws say it has to be on the label," Baron said.

"The fact that these head shops are selling it to inhale - they're not selling it to make whipped cream - and there's no warning; it violates all these laws," Barron added.

Had Starn seen a warning, he would have steered clear of Whip It!, Barron said.

She is trying to identify the manufacturers of nitrous oxide products sold in head shops, possibly to add them to the suit. That is proving difficult. Manufacturers are not listed on the packages. They are in Europe and China.

While that means they are therefore not in violation of federal labeling laws, their American subsidiaries are, Bowen said. There may well be a multiparty lawsuit in the offing. Or a class-action suit.

Such a suit could be staggering in size. By some estimates, up to 12 million Americans inhale laughing gas recreationally.

False-labeling law requires all profits from mislabeled products to go to plaintiffs.

Starn - and Bowen - could laugh all the way to the bank.

"People say, 'Well, he should know better,' " Barron said. "But he had just started law school. He didn't know."